Family Christian Stores (FCS) has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Yet the ministry assured customers yesterday that it “does not expect” to close any of its more than 250 stores or lay off any of its approximately 4,000 employees.

As the church is faithful to the mission given to her by Jesus Christ she will, out of necessity, “engage culture.” Of course, engaging culture is not our mission, but “making disciples of all nations” is what our Lord has called us to do. Yet, this sacred work cannot be done in a vacuum, outside of the cultural milieu in which people live.

Paul’s experience in Athens (Acts 17:16-34) is helpful as it demonstrates how he approached people and ministry in a particular culture.

If you’re a male staff member at a church, I ask you to consider a ghost story of sorts. I don’t think for a minute that you hate women. I know there are valid reasons to take a measured approach to how you interact with us in ministry settings. I absolutely want you to be wise, but I don’t want you to be haunted. Three female ghosts haunt most churches, and I want you to recognize them so you can banish them from yours.

The release of the Fifty Shades of Grey movie, timed for Valentine’s Day, is a more important and lamentable event than many Christians may realize. What the movie represents is nothing less than the evolution of pornography in an age increasingly distant from a biblical vision of sexuality and human dignity.

Edify

Psalm 119:5 “Oh that my ways may be steadfast in keeping your statutes!”

“Take away the cross of Christ from the Bible and it is a dark book.” J. C. Ryle

Sola13 was an outstanding conference. If you missed the conference, worry not. I’ve live blogged each of the sessions for your enjoyment. You can get the best of the content in about 30 minutes of reading.

If you wish to hear the entire 7 hours of audio, Sola13 will be releasing that audio content later this week at there website, sola13.com.

Here are my 3 takeaways from this conference.

1. The Church needs these kinds of conferences. During the last few years I have traveled to many conferences but all of them have been geared to pastors. This is the first conference that I went to that target a lay audience. Every speaker preached their sermon with this in mind. People left having engaged the Scripture, educated on the reformation, and enlivened by the gospel. Churches dream of delivering this kind of training to their people. I hope that Sola13 finds a way to reproduce itself in every region of the United States. Every Christ-foller should have access to this kind of experience. Perhaps they could have a circuit to hit other regions of the US in the coming days.

2. Pastors need these kinds of conferences. As a pastor it was a thrill to observe how the teaching had an immediate impact on people. As I furiously live blogged the conference, I was able to capture how the audience responded to what preachers preached. I was able to listen in on people’s conversations between sessions. I got to watch people get excited about their faith. I observed their interest in the bookstore, consideration of seminary, or even church planting. It warms pastors heart to see how the Body of Christ respond to solid biblical exhortation.

3. Publishers, Seminaries, and Church Planting Networks need these kinds of conferences. There are the obvious reasons for why these organization find these conferences helpful. But there are also more subtle reasons. There is something special when you get a blogger, a couple directors of admissions, a marketing representative from a publisher, and a church planter/gifted web developer together to fellowship and robust discussion about matters of the Church, seminaries, theology, ghostwriting, Nelson Mandela and Carrie Underwood singing the Sound of Music Live. Through these kinds of conferences new friendships are formed.

I’m grateful for my time of fellowship with Jared Oliphint, Stephane Jeanrenaud, Pat Daly, and Matt Heerema on Friday night. I was refreshed by my late night conversation with Michael Breznau, who kindly hosted me at this home. It was great catching up with a seminary bud. I enjoyed getting to know the guys at Crossway, Andrew Tebbe and Matt Tully. And then there was the hilarious antics of Dave Kurt and Ken Buck, two fellas who sat near me while I live blogged on Saturday.

Roy B. Zuck, senior professor emeritus of Bible Exposition at Dallas Theological Seminary and editor of Bibliotheca Sacra, went to be with the Lord on the evening of Saturday, March 16, 2013. Family visitation and viewing time will be on Thursday, March 21, from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m., at Redeemer Bible Church (Fellowship Hall).

There is an excellent tribute article written on DTS’s website. You may view it here.

Also, you may view his last Chapel message, Is the Rapture Next? here.

It was tough to narrow it down to my favorite ten books, but here is my favorite ten books I read and reviewed in 2012. This is a ranked countdown. Visit my book reviews page here to read these reviews.

10. Giving Up Gimmicks by Brian Cosby

9. Glorious Ruin by Tullian Tchividjian

8. Am I Called by Dave Harvey

7. Explicit Gospel by Matt Chandler

6. Servanthood as Worship by Nate Palmer

5. Modest by Tim Challies and R. W. Glenn

4. Creature of the Word by Matt Chandler, Josh Patterson, and Eric Geiger

Resolved, to brush up on Greek by doing a weekly devotional from Devotions on the Greek New Testament by Duvall and Verbrugge.

Resolved, to read Scotty Ward Smith’s Everyday Prayers: 365 Days to a Gospel Centered Faith. I’m going to be giving away a print copy of this book on the blog soon.

Resolved, to blog for quality over quantity this year. I hope to put together a couple solid interviews and book reviews a month and continue to blog about theology, family, youth ministry, and popular issues in the Church.

This morning my wife, daughter, son and I piled into the mini-van and started our delightful journey to a magical vacation in Disney World. Therefore we will experience an intercalation of our review series on Michael Svigel’s wonderful work, RetroChristianity. I know. This is a very dispensational thing for me to do and say.

When I return from vacation you can expect to see the last two installments on RetroChristianity, an evaluation of Unit One of the Gospel Project, a review of the Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd Jones, and my review of Gospel Deeps by Jared Wilson releasing from Crossway on September 30.

In the meantime, here is a preview of next weeks guest posts.

Saturday September 15th high school student Claira Hull shares about her most prized possession.

Monday September 17th author and blogger Aaron Armstrong will share about the not so glamorous life of a writer.

Tuesday September 18th blogger Nate Claiborne will disclose his strategy of applying triperspectivalism in a small group environment.

Wednesday September 19th blogger Kyle Worley will impart insights from the transfiguration pericope.

Thursday September 20th pastor Michael Breznau will provide four critiques on why a print bible excels over the use of a digital bible.

Lastly, on Friday September 21st and Saturday September 22nd, wife and mother Tammy Adams shares from the Genesis story of Joseph and her own touching story that God moves from being cool to astounding.

At the end of each month I like to share the most popular posts for the month. Here are the featured posts for this month. If you happened to miss any of these posts, give them a read. Sampling these posts also is a great way to decide if you might want to subscribe to my RSS feed.

Each month I also write a number of book reviews. Typically, the books I read go highly recommended by myself and others. In case you missed any of these reviews here is a list of the books that I reviewed this past month.

On Saturday September 8th from 8-10am go out to the Applebee’s in Tulsa Oklahoma at 106th and Memorial. For $6 you’ll be able to enjoy a great meal of flapjacks and help raise money for Bless the Children Ministries. Please share with others about this event and spread the word! You can register for this event at orphanrunflapjack.eventbrite.com.

To learn more about Bless the Children Ministries visit their website.

Occasionally at the end of the day I like to look through my tweets that I favorited and share some of them with my readers. Typically the people I favorite on Twitter are well worth a follow, so you should consider following these people. Here are some of my favorite tweets.

Do not limit your heart experience of Christ’s love, for it is infinite in its nature & boundless in its extent. Winslow

At the end of each month I like to share the most popular posts for the month. Here are the featured posts for this month. If you happened to miss any of these posts, give them a read. Sampling these posts also is a great way to decide if you might want to subscribe to my RSS feed.

Each month I also write a number of book reviews. Typically, the books I read go highly recommended by myself and others. In case you missed any of these reviews here is a list of the books that I reviewed this past month.

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About Joey Cochran

Joey Cochran (Th.M., Dallas Theological Seminary) follows Christ, is the husband of Kendall, and the father of Chloe ('08), Asher ('11), and Adalie ('13). Joey serves as pastoral assistant to Joe Thorn at Redeemer Fellowship in St. Charles, Illinois.

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All posts are Copyright (C) Joseph T. Cochran for the respective dates they were posted. However, you may use any of the posts on this site for personal and ministry purposes as long as they are unaltered, distributed free of charge, and properly attributed. For permission to use this material in any other way, please contact me at my E-Mail. (jtcochran82 AT gmail DOT com.) I do not, however, own the rights to the comments posted in response to essays or any quotations incorporated into my articles.